We are a worldwide academic organisation dedicated to cultivating the study of Scottish languages, literatures and cultures across the globe. 

We are very excited to announce that the fourth World Congress of Scottish Literatures will be hosted by the School of English at the University of Nottingham, from Wednesday 3rd to Sunday 7th July 2024. Both the School and the city enjoy a richly interlinked history with Scotland and Scottish writing. The School has particular specialist research in Older Scots, Romanticism, literary Modernism, and in the contemporary. Nottingham and its Midlands environs recur in the writing of Walter Scott; Byron’s ancestral home of Newstead Abbey lies just north of the city; J. M. Barrie earned a living writing for the Nottingham Journal; and the University holds the papers of Catherine Carswell. We even make an appearance in Trainspotting.
 
We hope that the Congress will be an opportunity to continue the mission of the International Association for the Study of Scottish Literatures, to bring together scholars from all over the world situate Scotland in a global and transnational scope. Hosting the Congress south of the border also offers us an opportunity to revisit the historical relationship between England and Scotland, and the effect that collaboration has had on the world. Nottingham, meanwhile, is indelibly marked by an outlaw imagination, and we are looking forward to a Congress held in that spirit.

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• Congress Website

• Congress Social Media

 

CALL FOR PAPERS

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The fourth World Congress of Scottish Literatures will be held from July 3rd to 7th 2024 at the University of Nottingham in England. The Congress is a major international gathering of scholars with a research interest in the study of all Scottish literatures, across all of Scotland’s languages, with an emphasis on Scotland’s place in the world.

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While the fourth World Congress does not have a specific theme, our scope is transnational, and we would especially welcome papers on subjects that reflect the specific context of the Congress in Nottingham: the relationship between Scotland and England from earliest times to the present, a relationship which has had profound implications for the entire world, and which is a significant relationship in literatures in Scots, Gaelic, English, French and Latin from earliest evidence to contemporary production. Under this broad umbrella, we hope to address the following strands:

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• Scoto-English relationships: personal, inter-textual, political, cultural and historical

• Scotland in Empire and the Empire in Scotland

• Outlaws, outliers and exiles

• My enemy’s enemy is my friend: Gaelic literary relationships beyond Scotland

• Shaped by Landscape: literary understandings of land, sea and the environment

• Scottish writing and World Literature

• Scottish medievalisms and the premodern use of the past

• Ultima thule: early Scottish engagements with Europe

• Outward-looking Romanticism

• Post-Couthy: literature in Scots since the Unions

• Drama, theatre and performance

• Contemporary Gaelic literature and media

• Diasporic writing: Scotland in a global world

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Proposals for papers, posters and presentations should include an abstract of c. 200 words, and your affiliation. Papers in English, Scots or Scottish Gaelic are welcomed; however, the conference is unable to provide simultaneous translation services for papers not delivered in English.

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The deadline for ALL proposal submissions is 31 October 2023.

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Please send submissions to the Congress Committee at Nottingham: wcsl24@nottingham.ac.uk.

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We welcome proposals for pre-organised panels on these themes, and they should be submitted by the overall deadline with a list of agreed participants and their abstracts and affiliations. Panel organisers are encouraged to explore alternatives to the traditional format of three to four papers, such as workshops or roundtables.

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We are eager to welcome graduate and postgraduate students, who may either submit proposals for traditional papers, or a poster or multimedia presentation (slide-supported talks, videos, short films etc.) in an informal ‘work in progress’ section. Information about postgraduate bursaries will be forthcoming in the next few months – please check our website or social media pages listed below.

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The emphasis of the Congress is on in-person attendance, but Nottingham 2024 will include some designated hybrid sessions with limited availability, anticipating the possibility of a range of travel limitations for participants. If you think you will be prevented from travelling to the Congress in person for any reason but want to be considered for a hybrid online session, please contact us.

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Please note that all participants must be members of the International Association for the Study of Scottish Literatures (IASSL) at the time of the Congress (please contact scotlit-iassl@glasgow.ac.uk for further details).

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